As an installer instead of a manufacturer of rooftop solar energy setups for homes and businesses, and some systems for the military, SolarCity and some rivals tout nothing-down solar leases that seek to defray monthly power bills. They often use third-party financing "lease funds" to do it, with those investors taking advantage of the hefty government subsidies that are available.

"Residential and commercial lease funds showed strong growth in 2013, with 22 announced funds totaling $3.34 billion, a 69% increase over 2012," Mercom Capital Group noted in a January roundup of solar funding efforts. "Almost $1 billion was raised in Q4 2013 alone. Vivint Solar, SolarCity, Sunrun, SunPower, and SunEdison were top fundraisers in 2013."

SolarCity is the largest company by market cap in its group, followed by solar manufacturer First Solar and then manufacturer-installers SunEdison (SUNE) and SunPower (SPWR).

However, SolarCity is still showing losses as it works to grow.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are looking for SolarCity to show a 55-cent per-share loss for the fourth quarter after a 54-cent loss a year ago, with the 2013 loss at $1.79. They forecast a slightly smaller loss of $1.68 for 2014 paring to an 87-cent loss in 2015. The consensus of the 10 analysts surveyed is for fourth-quarter revenue of $43.1 million, up 70% from a year earlier, and $159.7 million for the year. They forecast 2014 revenue at $262.9 million and 2015 at $468.3 million.

"I would say the biggest area that we all have to focus on is in investing into the team, growing the team, hiring and training the team. Then it starts off with sales, then operations," CEO Lyndon Rive said on SolarCity's third-quarter conference call with analysts. "We are bringing down our capital cost significantly ... it is clear that solar is going to have a long-term position here in competing against traditional cost of retail electricity."

As an installer instead of a manufacturer of rooftop solar energy setups for homes and businesses, and some systems for the military, SolarCity and some rivals tout nothing-down solar leases that seek to defray monthly power bills. They often use third-party financing "lease funds" to do it, with those investors taking advantage of the hefty government subsidies that are available.

"Residential and commercial lease funds showed strong growth in 2013, with 22 announced funds totaling $3.34 billion, a 69% increase over 2012," Mercom Capital Group noted in a January roundup of solar funding efforts. "Almost $1 billion was raised in Q4 2013 alone. Vivint Solar, SolarCity, Sunrun, SunPower, and SunEdison were top fundraisers in 2013."

SolarCity is the largest company by market cap in its group, followed by solar manufacturer First Solar and then manufacturer-installers SunEdison (SUNE) and SunPower (SPWR).

However, SolarCity is still showing losses as it works to grow.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are looking for SolarCity to show a 55-cent per-share loss for the fourth quarter after a 54-cent loss a year ago, with the 2013 loss at $1.79. They forecast a slightly smaller loss of $1.68 for 2014 paring to an 87-cent loss in 2015. The consensus of the 10 analysts surveyed is for fourth-quarter revenue of $43.1 million, up 70% from a year earlier, and $159.7 million for the year. They forecast 2014 revenue at $262.9 million and 2015 at $468.3 million.

"I would say the biggest area that we all have to focus on is in investing into the team, growing the team, hiring and training the team. Then it starts off with sales, then operations," CEO Lyndon Rive said on SolarCity's third-quarter conference call with analysts. "We are bringing down our capital cost significantly ... it is clear that solar is going to have a long-term position here in competing against traditional cost of retail electricity."

As for First Solar, Cowen & Co. analyst Rob Stone notes that the company is a leading provider of big utility-scale solar power systems and enjoys a large project backlog. However, he says in his investment thesis section of a Wednesday research report: "margins are expected to trend lower as the business transitions from subsidized to sustainable markets. We believe growing a project pipeline in new countries, deploying new equipment and processes to significantly increase module conversion efficiency, and ramping up a new (crystalline silicon) module technology pose material (near-term) execution risks."

First Solar has had strength in an alternative kind of "thin film" panel that used little silicon, but the business edge that provided eroded as silicon prices fell in recent years.

First Solar is expected to report EPS of 99 cents for its fourth quarter on Tuesday vs. $2.09 a year earlier, on revenue of $965.4 million, down from $1.08 billion a year earlier. For all of 2013, the consensus of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters is for revenue of $3.51 billion, rising to $3.76 billion this year and $4.15 billion in 2015, with EPS of $4.41, $3.44 and $3.48 for 2013-15.

Stone notes that 2013 guidance calls for 1.2 gigawatts of systems sales, but says "unless there are unannounced bookings, year-end backlog may have slipped."

He thinks that in Tuesday's report the company will give 2014 guidance just for the first quarter with an update on bookings and its project pipeline, then a "full year and longer term outlook at the analyst day (3/19)."

Two analysts polled by Thomson Reuters call First Solar a strong buy, one a buy, 13 a hold, three underperform and one sell. For SolarCity, one analyst calls it a strong buy, three a buy, five a hold and one underperform.

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